Prop Tech

To enable a new era for the property market, connectivity needs to become a priority for estate agents looking to take their business to the next level and provide an even better service to their customers. We will be running meetings with the Coadjute team across various dates in January 2022, where you can find out more about our new features within Openview.

Tech, as it has been shown more than ever during the pandemic, can be a wonderful thing – bringing people closer together, providing entertainment, making life more convenient, saving lives and keeping the country running during its biggest health crisis in a century. But tech solutions on their own aren’t always the answer – it needs to be the right tech, utilised in the correct way to really answer a need or desire. And it needs to evolve the market rather than attempting to disturb or disrupt it, as some PropTechs do. We often hear from agents that they are faced with too many PropTech solutions, with PropTech that is answering a question that no-one was asking. However, getting the right tech in place can help to transform, grow and enhance an agency business.The big question is – how do you go about choosing the right products and services? Here, …

Manage, Engage and Automate with Openview. But what do we mean by this? This blog is part 1 of a series of 3 blog posts where we’ll be exploring the Openview ecosystem. To begin with, we’re looking at how Openview can help manage your agency. Agency is in constant change, staff, compliance, working practices and this is only going to accelerate. For example, agents are seeing changes to the stamp duty holiday, right to rent changes are due whilst changes to the Section 8 form has come in. With all this constant change, it has never been such an important time to manage your business and bring order to this confusing change, enabling you to work on the business and not fire fight in the never-ending additions being put against you. That’s where our Openview property software comes in. Openview allows you to manage your agency through three different diverse …

CRM systems such as Openview can significantly help you as a property professional grow your business. Ultimately, there are two things growth comes down to, reducing costs and increasing revenue. It has never been such an important time for letting agents to utilise CRM, below we’ve examined what you can do. Value Think carefully about what separates you from the agent across the road? Offer customers value by delivering them services through your CRM. This doesn’t come easily, it’s vital you have a deep understanding of what your CRM can do to improve your business insight. One example of this is Openview’s repair reporting tool, Task Manager. By offering tenants the chance to report repairs instantly, online you’ll be defining yourself from the agent down the road who doesn’t have this service, whilst offering them value as you’ll be saving the tenant and yourself time. Industry leader, Peter Knight recently …

Going BANG? We’ve put a list together of things you can do to ensure your letting or estate agency has that extra snap, crackle and pop, whilst also utilising our Openview property software to enhance your marketing. 1 Offer Online As well as offering a traditional high street service, adapt your agency to online. Launch your own online affiliate brand using Openview Online which can run alongside your traditional agency. Advertise your online brand in your office window and in the window of your website. This will increase your visibility online, whilst give new clients a choice of using you or your online affiliate, giving them no reason not to approach you. 2 Get On TV Whether it’s Homes Under The Hammer, Location, Location, Location or Grand Designs, look out for TV opportunities. This June, Curve Media are looking for family run estate agents to take part in a new …

5G has officially started rolling out across the UK. To begin with it will be available in six cities on the EE network rising to 10 by the end of the year. Ultimately, 5G means faster internet speeds, potentially up to 20Gbs, we at VTUK would like to explore what these faster speeds mean for the housing market and how they’re likely to impact the property industry on the whole. Smart Homes 5G’s incredible speed will allow for much deeper smart home integration. As our TV’s, kettles, washing machines, fridges and a whole manner of household devices become connected, the home Wi-Fi is getting slower and slower. Using 5G will allow much faster integration within the home, making the home smarter than ever before. Smart Neighborhoods 5G will have a significant impact on our living neighborhoods. Driverless cars will be able to communicate fluidly whilst sensors can be deployed that …

We asked our drone expert, Jae, for some guidance into how agents can use drones to enhance their marketing. How can agents use drones to enhance their marketing? An agent I’d expect would use a drone in order to take pictures of any property they have. I’m under the impression at the moment that it’s normally the case of a higher end property or a property with a decent amount of area around it. Offering drone photography is certainly a fantastic way to stand out as an agency and gain new instructions, although the operator flying the drone would need a licence to fly over any property or any area in which have people operating. Do you need to be a qualified pilot to fly a drone? You do need to be a qualified pilot to fly a drone. You need to take a short course which currently takes about …

VTUK carried out some research to find out what the ten top concerns landlords have in today’s property industry. Here’s what we found… “My tenants won’t pay the rent?” Many landlords are concerned what to do if their tenants don’t pay their rent. Making the Section 21 process clear with your landlord, whilst utilising our Openview software to automate the arrears process could reassure them, you as the letting agent are managing the rental process efficiently. “My tenants could sublet?” Landlords are concerned if their tenants start subletting their property. Make it clear with your landlord that tenants need permission to do this beforehand whilst ensuring a term is in place in your tenancy agreement for subletting. “My tenants could damage the property?” Managing the rental process is key. Think about using Openview’s repair reporting tool, to give tenants the ability to report any repairs directly to the landlord or …

Who are you? Peter Grant, currently serving year 27 of my sentence in the property industry and still loving every moment of working in such an innovative environment. What does it say on your business card? CEO of VTUK What is VTUK? It’s a tiger, where the spine is technology, flexible enough to be agile, but strong enough to support huge speeds and sharp turns. The claws and teeth are our clients, fearsome and sharp as razors, getting the job done, all wrapped up in big soft pelt of service, mindfulness and care. How long have you been trading? We started trading on the same day that Tim Berners-Lee unleashed the internet on the world in 1989. Famously, I was quoted five years later as saying: “posting properties on the internet to sell them will never take off!” In what ways do you help estate and letting agents? It would …

We asked out tribe to describe Taurus… What’s Taurus? Built within Openview, Taurus is our automation system. Using what we call business process management, Taurus can automate those employee activities that either cost the company valuable time or are business critical to the company. As well as this, Taurus can provide your business with 100% security by monitoring staff transactions, financial transactions, preforming continuous backups, monitor and control all safety and compliance as well as comply with all your pre-existing security measures. This is our response to the problems created by employee-dependent applications. Taurus can levering your organisations IT system by creating a real-time, responsive infrastructure. Who’s it for? Taurus is for property professionals needing to save time in and outside the office. Our Taurus system is suitable for any estate agent, landlord, leasehold block manager, lettings manager, new homes builder, property manager and social housing provider. How does it …